Group Dynamic Loading Screen

[Vampyre]

Double post

[Vampyre]

And again... I'll get my coat.

[Einar Saukas]

Going off-topic a bit but I think we can reduce the size of that "Unspecified custom loader" list, using Andrew Barker's loading schemes list as a starting point.

This would be great!!!

Although we will need a team effort to identify the specific files for each scheme. Sometimes different releases or versions of the same title had different schemas.

Perhaps we could have the following groups:

1. Dynamic loading screen (e.g. Technician Ted, Moon Strike, Trap Door)
2. Timer/countdown (all Alkatraz and later Speedlock games, Hewson Slowload, FTL/Gargoyle, Starstrike II)
3. Custom screen loader (Alkatraz games, Into the Eagle's Nest, Halls of the Things)

I'm concerned about the last 2 groups, because it means the same information stored as both tag/group and protection scheme.

Whenever we have redundant information like this, it will inevitably get out-of-sync in future updates, as soon as our attention is redirected to the next subject.

However as I wrote before, I will take whatever you all decide...

[equinox]

The Final Matrix by Gremlin has instruction text gradually appearing during loading. It seems to use the same technique as in their Compendium games (Shove-a-Sledge, Tiddly Drinks, etc.)

P.S. I would like to hear more about Ultimate Play the Game: The Collected Works: I've never heard of this compilation (and of course it's distribution-denied). What does the loader do?

[Lee P]

This would be great!!!

Although we will need a team effort to identify the specific files for each scheme. Sometimes different releases or versions of the same title had different schemas.

True, it'll take a bit of detective work.

I'm concerned about the last 2 groups, because it means the same information stored as both tag/group and protection scheme.

Whenever we have redundant information like this, it will inevitably get out-of-sync in future updates, as soon as our attention is redirected to the next subject.

I'm not sure how it would get out of sync. I just see it as a way of grouping releases based on the loader's features. At the moment we know Bobby Bearing is an Alkatraz game from the protection scheme, so we can guess that it has a counter and a custom screen loader, but we don't know that it also has a dynamic loading screen.

[equinox]

I'm not sure how it would get out of sync. I just see it as a way of grouping releases based on the loader's features.

If we store things in two places, and later we modify the categorisation scheme (e.g. splitting Speedlock into Speedlock A and Speedlock B), or we find a mistake that needs correcting, then it is vital to change both places -- and easy to forget.
In software engineering it's called DRY: "don't repeat yourself".

[Lee P]

The Final Matrix by Gremlin has instruction text gradually appearing during loading. It seems to use the same technique as in their Compendium games (Shove-a-Sledge, Tiddly Drinks, etc.)

That's the Search loader by Steve Marsden and David Cooke, first seen on Costa Capers (although as far as I know Technician Ted was an earlier version of the same thing) and then various Hewson and Gremlin games. But it should be called Multiload (Search was Marsden and Cooke's company name)

P.S. I would like to hear more about Ultimate Play the Game: The Collected Works: I've never heard of this compilation (and of course it's distribution-denied). What does the loader do?

It's Alkatraz, so they just applied the same fancy screen loader to the Ultimate games as games by US Gold and The Edge after 1986.

[Lee P]

If we store things in two places, and later we modify the categorisation scheme (e.g. splitting Speedlock into Speedlock A and Speedlock B), or we find a mistake that needs correcting, then it is vital to change both places -- and easy to forget.
In software engineering it's called DRY: "don't repeat yourself".

I'm not sure what's being stored in two places though? To use the example of Bobby Bearing again:

Bobby Bearing uses the Alkatraz protection system.
Bobby Bearing has a dynamic loading screen.
Bobby Bearing has a counter.
Bobby Bearing has a custom screen loader.

If we then go on to decide Bobby Bearing is Alkatraz B for some reason, we can do so without it affecting the other three categories.

[worcestersource]

No, that was a fake, it wasn't actually loading anything!

Wow? So it just simulated loading? Consider me nicely fooled!

[druellan]

No, that was a fake, it wasn't actually loading anything!

Even the code that is supposed to load when doing that is useless, it is just sound to carry on the illusion. I remember being puzzled trying to convert it to disk, always having a reset if I try to load that block of code.

[Lee P]

Wow? So it just simulated loading? Consider me nicely fooled!

Even the code that is supposed to load when doing that is useless, it is just sound to carry on the illusion. I remember being puzzled trying to convert it to disk, always having a reset if I try to load that block of code.

Yes, having checked SPIN I can see there's a 10K block of code recorded to tape which is what you can hear while it's un-jumbling the screen, but it never actually loads. It then goes on to load a 27K block which is the game itself.

If you try to load it using SPIN's flash loader/edge loader, it crashes, because it pauses the tape while it goes through the fake loader, and then loads the first (wrong) block of code instead of the second.

It'd be interesting to see what's in the code - probably "HA HA SUCKERS!!!!!!" hundreds of times.

And this M. Child person seemed to like unnecessarily long load times, what with the three different screens that pad Action Biker out to nearly six minutes.

[druellan]

I'm concerned about the last 2 groups, because it means the same information stored as both tag/group and protection scheme.

Whenever we have redundant information like this, it will inevitably get out-of-sync in future updates, as soon as our attention is redirected to the next subject.

Yeah, that's why we ultimately decided to use a mix between Custom Loading Screen and Dynamic Loading Screen, but it ended being called Dynamic for some reason, and now I'm having second thoughts about that name, Custom is probably better.

So, I think we can just rename it and add the custom load screens left behind.

The group is not intended to be an indicative of the loading technology, but to be a quick and broad reference for interesting ways of load the screen, since this was a distinctive feature of the system. I also want to stick to historic titles, meaning, not to cover modernizations of the loading schemmes.

[druellan]

(I've now realised I've just repeated back to you almost exactly what you proposed in the first post! )

Hah! Yeah, that was my first try, but there are not so many truly dynamic ones and a lot of just counters, and ultimately as I commented above, I just want a group with all the crazy ways to load a screen. For more technical and accurate details we have the schemme info.

[Lee P]

Hah! Yeah, that was my first try, but there are not so many truly dynamic ones and a lot of just counters, and ultimately as I commented above, I just want a group with all the crazy ways to load a screen. For more technical and accurate details we have the schemme info.

What I'm saying though is the scheme info doesn't have much actual info beyond "Alkatraz", "Speedlock 1", "Bleepload" etc. Unless there's further info I'm missing in the database?

Anyway I see you've been adding to the linked sheet in the first post, I'll have a look through it and see if I can think of any more.

[druellan]

Going off-topic a bit but I think we can reduce the size of that "Unspecified custom loader" list, using Andrew Barker's loading schemes list as a starting point.

This would be great!!!.

I can quick-start that effort in another topic, and see if we can push it forward.